Burkina bars ex-leader’s party candidate from presidential vote

Burkina Faso’s Constitutional Council on Saturday provisionally cleared 16 candidates for presidential elections in October, but declared the nominee of ousted president Blaise Compaore’s party ineligible.
Eddie Constance Konboigo, head of Compaore’s Congress for Democracy and Progress party, was among six candidates barred from running, along with Gilbert Noel Ouedraogo of the ADF/RDA grouping that was allied to the former strongman’s administration.

Compaore was toppled October 2014 and fled into exile in Ivory Coast after a popular uprising triggered by his attempt to extend his 27-year rule.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in protests that were brutally suppressed, leaving several dead.

A transitional government is running the country until presidential and legislative elections, the first round of which take place on October 11.
Konboigo called the decision a move to “exclude” his party based more on politics than the law.
“We dispute the decision of the Constitutional Council … We will denounce it but we will comply,” he continued, calling the youth of his party to “avoid confrontation”.

The final list of presidential candidates will only be published after the deadline for appeals runs out on September 6. Only those candidates who made the provisional list can contest the candidacy of a rival.

The Council had also declared 52 people ineligible to run for parliament over their support for Compaore’s bid for a third term.